Facepalm Sunday.

Gorgeous weekend here, and I'm sad. We're all magnets with the same polarity; you get too close to anyone on the street or in the store and you are instantly repelled from each other. There's no baseball, although of course by the end of the first week it's always possible that the beloved Mets would be mathematically eliminated anyhow.

It is Palm Sunday, which is a sad day; it is the start of Holy Week, and Mass includes the reading of the entire Passion. The five weekend Masses are the longest our church has all year, except for the Easter Vigil Mass next Saturday night. And this year it's sadder yet, as there's no Mass in the Archdiocese, thank to that damned virus from China. We'll watch Mass online, but it's not the same.

It may be especially disappointing for the A&P Catholics. Unlike that other uncommonly seen variety of observant Catholic, the C&E, who only turns up on Christmas and Easter, the A&P only comes to church for Ash Wednesday (which is not even a day of obligation) and Palm Sunday. I can see making the effort for the two biggest holidays on the church calendar, but why lesser days instead?

The theory is that they are the only days you get something free from the Church. Besides, you know, the bulletin and -- oh, yeah -- Holy Communion. This year the A&Ps were able to get their free ashes, since the churches had not been closed yet on Ash Wednesday, but they will be unable to complete the Denominational Double with a palm frond.

Everybody really likes to get those palm fronds, though. Especially if they know the trick to tying them into crosses. It figures that this is the first year I found nice, clear directions, and I have no blessed palm fronds to tie.

In other words, in this time of trouble, I ain't got no fronds. No frond to speak of. Not a frond in the world.

Palm Pilate, or Barabba-Dabba-Doo!

Went to the Vigil Mass last night, because Palm Sunday usually gets a crowd and the Mass can run a good hour and a half. It's a tough Mass because it requires audience participation. As I noted a couple of years ago, we get all the stupid dialogue, too.

"We want Barabbas!"

Morons.

We don't know much about the Barabbas in question, except that he was a notorious thief, some sort of rebel, maybe a murderer, possibly the son of a rabbi (based on the etymology of the name Barabbas), and was played by Stacy Keach in the epic Jesus of Nazareth. 

Not a lot of mustache for this part.

Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist wrote a novel about the man, published in 1950. Unlike a lot of novels based on the New Testament (Ben-Hur, The Robe, Quo Vadis), there's no joy or sacrifice or salvation in Barabbas. The character based on the man is a thug, a man who ultimately would like to believe in Christ but is incapable of giving or receiving love, and dies in his sins. This is the kind of book Scandinavians enjoy -- loveless people who embrace despair. That's why they gave Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize. (Kidding!)

I don't quite agree with the Swedes. I don't see a great story of salvation in Barabbas, either. I just think of him and so many other figures in the Gospels as I probably would have been had I been there, someone deeply protective of his self-interests and desiring nothing that would lead to more trouble, like, say, following the cult of a crucified savior. I probably would have been as far away from Calvary as I could possibly be.

The Romans were no joke in their occupation. I've always been a little sympathetic toward Pontius Pilate, stuck in this dusty outpost with these ungovernable people and trying not to look bad before his cruel bosses in Rome. Then again, he was marked by your average Roman cruelty; he doesn't want to have Jesus killed because he sees no fault in the guy, but he's fine with flaying him half to death. I was quite taken by Rod Steiger's portrayal in Jesus of Nazareth; yeah, Steiger liked to overact, but he seemed to get the measure of the man. I am sure I have also been unduly influenced by the sympathetic portrayal of Pilate in Mikhail Bulgakov's famous novel The Master and Margarita. 

But if I'd been a Jew in Jerusalem, I'd have gone nowhere near any Romans if I could help it.

When I was confirmed I was supposed to receive the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. I think readers of this blog will agree that many of these don't apply to me (Wisdom! Ha!), and I can assure you that Fortitude, also known as the Spirit of Courage, seems to have been lost in transit with the others.

"We want Barabbas"?

I'd have been saying, "Feet, don't fail me now!"

The Sunday before Palm Sunday.

Only two weeks to go to Easter! Every week the pews have been filling up as people remember that they have a religion and a place to go practice it. And that's good! Maybe a few will stick as long as Pentecost.

I thought I should do something positive for my faith during Lent, like read the entire Bible. At the rate I'm going I'll... start any day now.

Fortunately some brilliant writer has the TL;DR version of the Bible out on social media. You know my slogan: MSMSA (Make Social Media Social Again). Here it is so you, too, can say you read the Bible this Lent:

I want to thank whoever put this together, as it's the kind of idea I might have come up with for this blog but would not have executed so well.

Longtime readers, who by virtue of that have paid for sins, may know that I often try to do some Bible reading at Lent and Advent. One year I read all four Gospels; another, the Epistles. One Advent I read all the Psalms, another all of Isaiah. It was interesting, it was sometimes challenging, it was enlightening, and it was easier when I was taking the bus to work. I would read a lot on the bus.

Lately I've been relying on a Bible app that gives me a random chapter every morning and a biography of the saint of the day. It's been a means of looking at the parts of the Bible I might never have dared read before. I must confess, when some sections come up in the rotation -- like in Chronicles, with long lists of names, or Deuteronomy, with things measured and sorted for verse after verse by cubits -- I die a little inside. After that, a chapter from a Gospel or Epistle is like meeting an old friend in a strange town.

I must always bear in mind that the Bible is a history of a people, in addition to its many other purposes, and must by nature have these lists of names and laws and instructions. It's common to ancient histories. Heck, in Homer's Iliad he lists pretty much every schlub fighting for either side before he gets into the action, and then he tells us how each one of them died. The Jews were an even more literate and more meticulous people, so their histories are even more detailed.

Which means to me, modern reader? A lot of the Old Testament is a slog. I've been known to skim.

Maybe I should just say "We did the things" and be done with it.

Easter reminder.

Today is Palm Sunday, which celebrates -- if that's the word I want -- the Passion and death of Jesus. It's one of the longest Masses of the year for Catholics, and the only one that requires audience participation in the Gospel.

Really -- and we get some of the worst dialogue. If you're not familiar with the format, the reading is divided among the narrator (usually a deacon or priest), Jesus (a priest), a speaker (a lector), and chorus (the congregation). The lector will read the words spoken by individuals like Judas, Pilate, Peter, and Caiaphas, and we all do the bloody-minded mob.

"We want Barabbas! We are schmucks!"

Anytime an idiot is speaking, it's us.

It's always interesting when the congregation is called on to do something. American Catholics generally shy at getting involved in our own services, unlike other Christians and Catholics in other countries. We're terrible about the group singing. We avoid the front pews as if the father is going to snag a volunteer for his sawing-a-congregant-in-half trick. In our parish we once had a visiting priest from the Philippines who always seemed to be wondering what he had to do to get a reaction out of these people, for Pete's sake.

But everyone seems to get into the spirit of the Palm Sunday readings, even though we feel the shame of participating in the Crucifixion. We know that we are not mouthing the words of blinkered Jerusalemites; we are speaking for all of us, who would not have fought to save the life of this blasphemer, even if we believed he was who he said he was. He'll get out of this on his own if he's that great -- there's a lot of that in the Gospel. I don't want to piss off Herod. I don't want to piss off the Sanhedrin. I really don't want to piss off the Romans. Besides, he probably is a blasphemer, lawbreaker, troublemaker. He's offended everybody, hasn't he? Hey, if he's so great how'd they manage to arrest him?

Church doctrine teaches that we're all guilty; many of us just don't know it. Palm Sunday is our reminder.

Simon.

Since Palm Sunday I've been thinking of Simon of Cyrene. There's a New Testament fellow with whom I can identify.

Simon appears in the Gospels of Luke, Matthew, and Mark, but he's not a major player (all quotes KJV):

And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross. (Matthew 27:32)

 And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. (Luke 23:26)

 And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. (Mark 15:21)

And that's all. For that he is a rare non-integral figure mentioned in three Gospels and the star of the Fifth Station of the Cross.

For a learned and brief essay on Simon, I'd recommend this one; for a dopey and briefer one, my comments below!

A few things that stand out to me:

Roman efficiency -- "We're not going to stand like stooges all day waiting for this guy to drag his cross around. You! Get over here and grab this thing!"

Roman undeniability -- You didn't say to the Romans, "Well, gosh, I'd love to help, but I got a thing, so peace out, bro."

There was no clear benefit to Simon to get dragged into this. He got no per diem for the job. There he was, some guy from out of town, just passing by (not even said to be a spectator like the others), and the Romans grab him. Now he has to appear with this condemned criminal in public (like they're besties!) while the latter goes to a humiliating death, and Simon looks like he's a co-conspirator or something. Whatever impelled him to travel all the way to Jerusalem from Cyrene, it wasn't this.

And it was a schlep to Jerusalem from Cyrene (now in Libya); it's about 1,130 miles by the land route, farther than New York to Des Moines. I guess he would probably have gone by the Mediterranean Sea, but even that was no Carnival cruise in those days.

I can totally identify with that. A long, maybe miserable trip to a town known for all kinds of trouble, and the next thing you know you're getting mixed up with criminals and oppressors and doing bloody manual labor for no pay. Boy, am I going to hammer Jerusalem on Yelp!

A Swiss actor named Jarreth Merz played Simon in The Passion of the Christ, and he did an excellent job, showing shock, dismay, horror, pity, and ultimately confusion, a man overtaken by events who senses that there is far more going on than he can know. Pretty much sums up my journey through life. (I might have tried to lie to the Romans, saying my lumbago was acting up, but the film didn't include that kind of embellishment.)

Simon, although sometimes known as the Cross Bearer, is not considered a saint, but tradition tells us that his children mentioned in Mark, Alexander and Rufus, became Christian missionaries and probably saints. Gets pretty confusing, actually, but the standing of Alexander and Rufus in the early Christian community would explain why they get a mention in Mark.

Anyway, Simon doesn't have a feast day or a patronage, but I feel for him. If there were to be a saint for those who get dragged into trouble, or people whose journeys take a bad turn, or people being randomly bullied by authority, or people who want to help but aren't keen on getting mixed up in distasteful things, Simon would fill the bill.

Best to you, Simon, and your sons, and may we all become more willing to help carry the crosses of the innocent who suffer.

Palm, tree.

It's Palm Sunday, a holy day I've written about in the past. The Mass is actually second only to the Easter Vigil in its length. I've headed into church some years when the crowds were running into the crowds from the previous Mass just leaving-- normally a half hour gap. (The local parish has since scheduled morning Masses with an hour gap instead.)

Today is also the first day of spring, which makes for an interesting contrast. Palm Sunday is a day in which the Passion is read, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem ending in the Crucifixion. It is not a day of hope; it may be the biggest day of irony in history. Spring, though, is a day of hope, and has been since the earth started turning.

There are similarities between the days too. Spring, of course, is when we hope to see the lazy deciduous trees start budding, although I am always disappointed. Palm Sunday also has a connection to trees, a very strong one.

Palms, of course, are central; palm branches were cut down and used to lay them across the path of Jesus and to wave them in honor, as for a mighty king. This led soon enough to a different tree, one whose wood became the cross upon which Jesus hung. And of course, the whole sacrifice was required to redeem us from the sin of those who ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Which made me think about my tree, the one I tried to save last September. While walking the dog I found an evergreen that was nearly strangled to death by a wicked pokeberry vine. The vine had completely grown up from the trunk through the branches, destroying the beautiful tree, leaving mostly branches bare of needles, brittle, broken. The few branches with green needles gave me hope that it might be saved.

I went back and chopped the vine at its base. It died. Yesterday I went to see if the tree had rebounded.

Looked better in pieces, but the needles were tipped with red and pulled out easily. Far too much of it looked like this:

I don't even know if there's any reason to hope for this tree, but I still do. It's not dead yet. It may be that the vicious vine was throttling it so long that its growth was severely affected, rendering it unable to survive with or without the crippling weed.

When I first encountered it, it was certain that it was going to die. At least I gave it a chance. But there is still plenty of reason to doubt if it will survive.

Face-palm Sunday.

As we know, Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday bring out the A&P Catholics. Why? We don't know. Maybe because they're getting something for free.

Ashes and palm leaves. Score!

I wonder what everyone else does with their palms. Some people make crosses out of them. Sometimes the crosses are used to adorn grave sites. Some people, like me, just keep them around the house.

Now what do I do with them?

During the Crusades, palmers were poor pilgrims who made their way to the Holy Land as mendicants, carrying palms as their symbol. It's supposed to be where the surname Palmer comes from. I first encountered the term in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, in which a character disguised as a lowly palmer returns to Saxon chief Cedric's home. Maybe I could take my palms and go schlep to the Holy Land.

The thing is, you can't just go pitching palms, or any blessed item. They need to be treated with reverence. For disposal, they must be burned or buried. Traditionally the previous year's palms are burned to make ashes for Ash Wednesday, but our church hasn't been collecting them these last few years. Maybe they had plenty already.

I'll tell you something from my own experience: Even dried out old palm leaves do not burn well. You can take that to the bank. Also, we don't have a fireplace or a fire pit. All we have is a house that could go up like tinder if I keep trying.

So... can I run them through the shredder? No, that would seem to be a violation of the code.

What I did in the past was return them to the earth. I didn't know about the burial thing, so I just ran them over with the lawn mower. Thought that would help speed the decomposition along, you know?

Now you know why the face-palm. And why, unlike my fellow parishioners, I'm not grabbing at the palm leaves as we enter the church today, Palm Sunday. Too much responsibility.